The man the team is relying on to run its offense has been a play caller for all of five NFL games. That’s very, very scary, Bears fans.
I’m working hard at trying to get excited about the Bears’ decision to hire Matt Nagy as their head coach. I really am.
But there’s not a whole lot to work with here. His first three jobs in the NFL were as a coaching intern (2008-09), coaches’ assistant (2010) and offensive quality control coach (2011-12), all with the Eagles. His first big-boy job was when head coach Andy Reid hired him as the Chiefs quarterbacks coach in 2013. He became offensive coordinator in 2016 but didn’t start calling plays until 11 games into this season.
That’s correct: The man the Bears are relying on to run their offense has been a play caller for all of five NFL games.
That’s not to say he’ll join the list of Bears coaching washouts. It’s to say: Is it safe for me to open my eyes yet?
Matt Nagy (right), the Bears’ new head coach, was the Chiefs offensive coordinator under head coach Andy Reid (left) since 2016. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
Let’s give the Bears this: They didn’t dawdle.
A week after they began their search for a new head coach, they hired Nagy to replace John Fox.
He will be tasked with turning quarterback Mitch Trubisky into a star and saving general manager Ryan Pace’s job.
No pressure.
The major question, besides “Who the heck is Matt Nagy?’’ is an inevitable knee-jerk one:
Was he calling the plays in the Chiefs’ devastating playoff loss to the Titans on Saturday, the loss in which Kansas City blew an 18-point halftime lead and for some reason went pass-heavy in the second half?
If so, how will he make it out of Kansas City alive?
I’m not going to criticize the Bears for hiring someone whose last game was a complete catastrophe. But it is the Bears’ luck that what should be a shining moment for the franchise comes with a cloud.
Here’s what CBS Sports analyst Jason La Canfora wrote after the game:
Whoever that grizzled front-office exec is must not be grizzled enough to know much about how the Bears do business.
Nagy didn’t start calling the Chiefs’ plays until early December, when Reid handed him the headset after the team had struggled to score points. And the Chiefs took off, winning four of their final five games and averaging 28 points.
So he has that going for him.
The Bears obviously think it’s a large enough sample size. But it can’t be emphasized enough: He has called plays in just five NFL games.
It’s hard to tell if Pace has incredible courage and vision, bad judgment or handcuffs on his wrists supplied by ownership.
It was inevitable that the Bears would turn to a man with no head coaching experience after breaking from tradition and hiring Fox, who had led the Panthers and the Broncos to Super Bowl appearances. It seemed unlikely that they would want to pay big money to another coach with a pedigree while still paying the previous coach.
They will replace the 62-year-old Fox with the 39-year-old Nagy. It’s the NFL way: Whatever the previous coach was, do the opposite.
Older gives way to younger. Blander gives way to at least a bit more colorful.
There are other questions about Nagy that need answering:
Does he have enough experience to be a head coach?
Does he know enough people to build a quality staff?
We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, man, does Nagy have a lot to prove to Chicago.
